


Already Saved

by PaddlingTheCanoe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fix-It, I wrote this in a fit of rage at 3 am, M/M, finale fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27654340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaddlingTheCanoe/pseuds/PaddlingTheCanoe
Summary: My interpretation as to the bare minimum we should have received from the finale. I wrote this not with the intention of it being my ideal story, but rather what I think they could do with minimum changes to what was already there. Namely, just changing some dialogue, having Cas actually appear and get his reciprocal love confession, and then having everyone in the end be in a scene in Heaven together even if they aren’t explicitly mentioned. So.. yeah.Also warning I wrote this in a fit of rage at 3am.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 9





	Already Saved

_Sammy… I… this was a mistake. I should have told you sooner but I… I was applying for a job. I wanted to get out. I wanted to help you go back to law school. I just… I didn’t really know how to move on yet. I said all that brave shit about soldiering on but I was a fucking liar. Sam. I was torn up. You don’t have to be. Maybe I get another shot with what comes next, but you don’t have to wait for that. Please. Tell me you… tell me you’ll tell me you’ll go be happy._

_Dean, why… why does this seem like a goodbye?_

_Because it is, Sammy. I'm fading pretty fast._

_Then let me call an ambulance! Or Jack! I’m sure he’d-_

_No. I… I think this is better. You… you can still be happy, Sam. I… I don’t think I could be. I don’t think I’d be able to get past what we’ve lost. But you can. You’ve always been stronger than me that way, baby brother._

_Dean, this is idiotic. You don’t die like this._

_He might be there._

_Dean…_

_He’s not here, is he!? Jack wouldn’t have left him in the Empty! So where else could he be? He might be wherever I’m heading._

_I’m not letting you commit some weird suicidal bullshit on the off chance you-_

_Sam, how would Chuck have wanted me to die?_

_What are you-_

_He’d have you save me. Maybe I even make a full recovery. But then I spend an entire life being unhappy. I probably hold you back even though you won’t see it that way. We waste away together. Like we always have. I love you, Sammy, but we really aren’t good for each other. Not anymore. Maybe one day. Later… but not now. I know I could probably survive this. What, Dean Winchester kicking it to non-OSHA compliance? Fat chance, but I’m going to go out on my terms. I’m choosing my own story. This is the last chapter. The end. The finale, or whatever they say.”_

_I’m not gonna let you!_

_I’ve said this before, but for the first time in my life, I’m going to mean it: I don’t need your fucking permission. I love you. Go be happy. Bye, Sammy._

_Dean! DEAN!_

—————

“Dean, hey, Dean… you kinda faded off there for a second, son.”

Dean glanced up from his beer to Bobby. He blinked the memory from his eyes and tried to shake the sadness settling in his bones.

“Sorry, Bobby.”

“Were you thinking about Sam?”

“How’d you know?”

“I, uh, saw, kiddo. Funny thing Jack did to help people pass on. The person who meets ‘em knows what went down to get them here.”

“Oh,” Dean coughed and drank more of his beer. It tasted like the first beer he ever shared with Sam, splitting the single bottle while sitting on the hood of the impala becuase Dean was worried sick that the younger Winchester would get sick. But Sammy wanted to try it, and Dean couldn’t say no.

“You… you were pretty harsh with him there at the end. But you had to be, I get it. Sam wouldn’t have moved on otherwise. It won’t feel like long here, but I’m sure he’ll have plenty of time to forgive you.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” Dean only felt marginally better that Bobby understood. He glanced back around at the gorgeous forest surrounding them. Scanning.

“Rufus lives just down the road. You parents are shacked up just beyond that. Believe it or not, John’s actually seeing someone up here about what happened after your mother passed.”

Dean nodded, still preoccupied, “so… Jack set all this up? Fixed Heaven?”

“Yeah. Well, and Cas helped.”

“Cas?” Dean’s eyes widened in shock before he schooled his expression back into something less hopeful. “Cas is here?”

“Yes, for a while. I guess Jack brought him to be like… management or something up here.”

The guilt sat low in Dean’s gut. Cas was alive. He was not trapped in the Empty. But he… he had not come to see Dean. Not when he was still alive and mourning him. Not now. Dean tried to be brave. Tried to tell Sam they just had to move on but…. it it was a lie.

“Is there… is there a way I can talk to him?”

“Dean, it’s Heaven. You just need to ask.”

“It’s just… I don’t think he wants to see me.”

Bobby shifted in his seat and caught Dean’s eye.

“If he doesn’t want to talk to you, then what is that doing there?”

Dean’s eyes trace Bobby’s extended finger, coming to rest on Baby. The impala sat on a road that hadn’t been there before. The road stretched out into the distance and disappeared around a bend. Dean wordlessly handed the remains of his beer to Bobby.

“Dean, I know you need to go, just.. I’m having a little celebration here tonight. For you getting here. Everyone’s coming. They all want to see you. Regardless of what is happening with your angel, you have lots of people here that love you. But I don’t think you’ll need to worry about it,” Bobby’s face split into a knowing grin as he waved Dean off. His words helped Dean find the will to move to his impala, climbing into the driver’s seat.

He cherished this moment. The moment before knowing. He turned the key. Caressed the steering will. Listened to the purr. Baby was always there to comfort him when emotions got to be too much. He always liked to drive when he needed to get something off his chest.

The forest passed in a smooth blur.

“Cas?” Dean asked. He knew he wasn’t speaking to the air.

“Hello, Dean.”

The Winchester did not need to look over at the passenger’s seat. He couldn’t.

“Didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

“I always come when you call.”

“Yeah… thanks. For this, too,” Dean gestures to the road ahead of them, but also by extension the whole of Heaven.

“You always felt more comfortable discussing emotional topics when behind the wheel of a moving vehicle,” Cas’s tone had just the slightest hint of wry humor, and Dean tried not to immediately spiral down a well of self-loathing. Of course he preferred driving while talking about this stuff. He’d rather die in a traffic fatality than release his repressed emotions.

Dean let his foot off the gas and let the car slowly come to a stop. He made a show of putting the car into park and shutting it off. He placed his hands back on the wheel for lack of anything better to do with them. His eyes stayed trained on the road.

“You didn’t come back. After...I guess Jack saved you?”

“Yes. Jack came for me. I didn’t think I was welcome back with you and Sam.”

“Why not?” Dean’s voice was thin and terse. Cas remained remarkably steady and calm.

“You didn’t come to save me.”

There it was.

“I’m sorry. I should have… I should have clawed the Empty open myself. I just… I don’t know.”

For the first time, Dean felt Castile shift slightly in his seat.

“You don’t have to feel obligated to say that just because of what I told you before I- I was taken. I don’t have any regrets.”

“I do! I should have saved you! I was too caught up in grief and feeling shitty about myself and all these emotions I’ve kept in this tiny box inside me since I was old enough to be taught what a ‘real man’ was! You… ‘Gripped me tight and raised me from perdition’ and all of that. You saved me from actual Hell and I couldn’t save you with literal God on my side.”

“Dean,” Cas shifted again, and Dean almost jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and met Castiel’s eyes, and he almost regretted it. There was a wetness there, so much feeling. “Didn’t you hear anything I said to you? You already saved me. You had been saving me for years. You just didn’t know it because I didn’t tell you. Because I knew I could never have you.”

“But why, Cas? Why didn’t you think… I mean I know why but… but still… you never gave me the chance. I… I didn’t know angels could feel emotions like that. You had talked about love before but- but how could a celestial being… someone who would live forever really understand love? Love is so fucking fragile and it sucks and something perfect like that could never get it. Not in the human way. But then you were human, and then you weren’t and I just… I never let myself think about it. Because I knew… I knew I could never have you, Cas.”

Castile sucked in a breath. Dean watched an entire movie play out behind the other man’s eyes.

“Dean, are you…”

“Yeah.”

“You… you don’t have to say it. I already know. I believe you,” a tear fell from Cas’s eye. Dean bit back decades of fear and reached up to wipe the trail with his thumb. He left his hand cradling Castiel’s cheek.

“Cas, you deserve to hear it. I love you,” as Dean said he words, he choked on a sob. Cas wasn’t much better. Tears flowed openly down his face. He leaned forward and wept into Dean’s shoulder. The Winchester wrapped the angel in his arms and held him through it.

“We’ve been so stupid, Dean,” Cas manages through hitching breaths.

“Yeah, look at us. A pair of clowns,” Dean could feel Castiel smile into his shirt. After a short eternity, Cas pulled away. He wiped the tears from his eyes.

“I hear… I hear Bobby at the Roadhouse. Your arrival party will start soon. As much as I want to keep you here forever, there are other people who love you who want to see you.”

Dean tentatively reaches out and grabs at Castiel’s hand. Cas gets the message and wraps their fingers together. Dean grins as he starts the impala back up. As he turns and heads back toward the Roadhouse, he keeps glancing at his angel.

“You don’t need to worry about keeping me here forever. You got me, ready and willing. Forever. All that chick flick crap.”

“I thought you admitted to liking chick clicks?” Castiel joked.

“You’re right, I did.”

Dean leaned over and pecked a startled Castiel on the lips.

“Part two later, yeah? When all the kids aren’t around to be scandalized?” Cas muttered in a daze. Dean grinned and squeezed Cas’s hand.

Only a few moments later, the two walked hand in hand into the Roadhouse. It seemed everyone Dean had ever loved and lost was packed into the place. Happiness bubbled as he talked with everyone. An itch at the back of his mind told him the one person missing to make this all perfect wasn’t there, but Castiel’s hand in his made it easier to ignore.

After a long time and no time at all, Bobby’s voice rang out over the crowd.

“Hey everyone, guess who decided to show up fashionably late?”

Dean spun around. He felt Cas let go of his hand, but the hand just made its way to be a grounding weight on his shoulder. Dean beamed.

“Hey, Sammy!”

**Author's Note:**

> In my canon there are other scenes of Sam reuniting w Eileen in Heaven and having his whole catharsis moment. The boys need to find happiness apart before they can be healthily together imo. They get to see each other in the end, but it’s not about that. It’s the icing on the cake. And no Dean does not need Sam’s permission to die. He gets to have his own way and write the end of his story however he wants gosh darn it! And ugh. Anyway, again, this is not my “perfect ending” fix-it. Maybe I’ll write that when I’m not supposed to be caring about finals and finishing my other WIP. this is just meant to be my angry ramblings on what they could have done differently with very little effort. I almost didn’t put in a kiss at all because I think they could get away with just the love confession, but it’s 3am and I have no self control. This has been my TED Talk.


End file.
